One of the nation\u2019s leading educational authorities reiterated Tuesday (April 6) her often-reported warning that American public schools are in peril \u2014 perhaps more than ever.<\/p>\n
What was unusual, however, about Diane Ravitch<\/a>\u2019s presentation at the Askwith Forum of the Harvard Graduate School of Education <\/a>was her approach: What she once championed to save the system is now, she contends, leading to its demise.<\/p>\n \u201cThe passion for test-based accountability has turned into a monstrous obsession with data that threatens the quality of education,\u201d said Ravitch, an education historian who served in the first Bush administration\u2019s Education Department.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not actually opposed to testing. I believe testing can be very valuable when testing is used for informational and diagnostic purposes,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat I am opposed to is misuse of testing for accountability purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n She singled out \u201cthe na\u00efve belief that test scores are infallible and certain.\u201d Rather, \u201cThey should be used with caution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not opposed to choice [in selecting to attend a charter school]. I think everyone should have choices. But I oppose choice when it is used \u2014 as it has been in some places \u2014 as a conscious strategy to undermine public education.\u201d<\/p>\n Once a vocal proponent of standardized testing and charter schools, Ravitch often clashed with progressives. But in her 20th book, \u201cThe Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,\u201d she decried the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act<\/a> (NCLB); indeed, she suggested that an alternative book title could be \u201cLies Our Policymakers Tell Us About School Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n Ravitch insisted she has not \u201cdone a 180\u201d degree turn in her thinking. Rather, she said, she always has pushed for all children to have a quality education. \u201cI\u2019ve long been a critic of the rising tide of mediocrity,\u201d she said. \u201cI hoped, perhaps foolishly, that accountability and choice would help us reach [those ends]. And I think now I was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Schools and teachers are being punished for failing to reach impossible standards, so schools are \u201cgaming\u201d test results to improve scores, she said. Using 1998 to 2009 data that examines the skills of children who grew up under the No Child strictures, \u201cthere is not one iota of improvement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She compared using test scores to evaluate schools to judging a baseball player by a single at-bat, saying scores should only be only one element in evaluating a school. \u201cEven Babe Ruth struck out more than he homered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Charter schools, once heralded as an alternative to regular public schools, do not get better results, she said. Moreover, they represent only 1.5 million out of 50 million public school students. The focus should be on the majority, she said.<\/p>\n Ravitch slammed President Barack Obama for supporting punitive action against schools that fall short of standards. That, she said, encourages schools to recruit better students to raise scores, rather than help those most in need. She saved her harshest critiques for Congress, accusing lawmakers of knowingly passing impossible and unproven standards. \u201cIt is unethical for Congress to mandate remedies that are impossible to achieve,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ravitch\u2019s new approach has plenty of skeptics and critics; two of them participated in Tuesday\u2019s forum.<\/p>\n